Anyone experimenting with Beacons or Eddystone?

[wkearney99]

I don't have a specific framework in mind at this point in time, but I'm well acquainted with what's out there.
 
Right now it's more about what the gizmos might be able to provide.  
 
All too often implementations bog down on what the frameworks aren't capable of handling effectively.  For a variety of reasons, many of which have been as a result of technological limits.  But that's not the conversation I'm interested in having here in this particular message thread.  Here I'm looking at just what the beacon-like devices might be able to contribute for building 'presence' logic.  How that accumulated data and patterns might get applied is, perhaps, a separate discussion.

 

[cobra]

Just out of sheer curiosity, what automation system do you intend to use to consume the ibeacon reader messages delivered through MQTT ? OpenHUB perhaps ?  You do need something to implement logic, something like Homeseer or similar,  because conceptually ibeacons are nothing but glorified motion sensors providing more detailed information, of course.

I wouldn't even call them glorified motion sensors...  They are just beacons that you can detect with another device.  Now if you have a bunch of things that move and are large enough to put a small radio transmitter on, and you also have the receivers near where they will travel, you can build something...  I'm not yet convinced they are useful in most places.

 

[vc1234]

I wouldn't even call them glorified motion sensors... 

I meant in conjunction with the receiver, one could derive relative location information based on RSSI (which is by itself not terribly reliable  due to being influenced by environmental factors like rain or humidity, etc), becons can emit specific programmable strings,  that's probably it.  What also worries me is the fact that beacon receiver communication is in clear text which means that they are trivially spoofable.

 

[wkearney99]

I wouldn't even call them glorified motion sensors...  They are just beacons that you can detect with another device.  Now if you have a bunch of things that move and are large enough to put a small radio transmitter on, and you also have the receivers near where they will travel, you can build something...  I'm not yet convinced they are useful in most places.

 
My goals don't include trying  to convince anyone else, well, save for the WAF.
 
The determination of 'presence' has manifold implications for automation.  No one technology is ever going to be capable of fully encompassing 'presence' sufficiently to allow for anything other than pretty basic automation.  Sit still long enough and motion will think you're "gone".  Warm days and heat sensing can be problematic.  Sitting at your computer/tv/reading chair and the system might likewise forget that you're present.  Go to work without your phone/tablet, but you're still gone.  Let's not even get into the complications of visual recognition with cameras..  But add layers of other detection like your computer/game console isn't idle, or motion (of any sort) hasn't been detected in areas typical for that time of day, and some vehicles are gone... along with knowing it's a work day (not a holiday, weekend or during scheduled activities elsewhere)...  Then you start being able to have automation do something more intelligent.